It
is commonplace to assume that toppling the Taliban will free Afghan women.
But in an unstable country where soldiers celebrate conquest by raping
 and where there is currently no guarantee that whatever form of
government eventually assumes control will not be equally oppressive toward
females  women have to protect themselves to remain free.

Afghan women need to exercise the right of self-defense, including gun
ownership. They also need to be recognized as a force of armed resistance
against oppressive regimes.

Freedom Fighters

In the 1970's, Afghan women were among the most Westernized and liberated
in the Islamic world. Their pre-Taliban role as doctors, bankers, lawyers,
and teachers has been well documented. But almost no attention has been
given to the part they played as freedom fighters against the Soviets,
or to their potential for armed resistance against future oppressors who
may again try to hijack the country as the new government takes form.
Yet the evidence indicates that many Afghan women would fight to protect
themselves and their families.

In October 1996, the New Internationalist magazine interviewed Nooria
Jehan, a mother who joined the anti-Soviet mujahideen in guerilla warfare.

"I learned explosive techniques and began supervising and teaching
the younger men," Nooria recalled. "We would stick explosives
and detonators under the Russians' tables and chairs."

When asked what she would do if the women-hating Taliban captured her
city of residence, Kabul, Nooria said, "We will fight them as we
fought the Russians."

That is what some women have done. In the Nov. 12 Newsday, journalists
Matthew McAllester and Ilana Ozernoy quoted a woman named Malika, a mother
whose family lived on the Taliban front line of Bagram just north of Kabul.

As the journalists commented, the very existence of Afghan women who
take up arms suggests "a female population with more vitality and
self-confidence than is immediately apparent."

Armed resistance is emerging as a sub-theme of women in Islam. The Iranian
artist Shirin Neshat captured this in her acclaimed photographic series
"Women of Allah (1993-97)." Neshat was born into Westernized
Iran. Exiled during the Islamic Revolution, she returned to a nation in
which women were silenced. From Neshat's black-and-white photographs,
women stare defiantly past their veils, some of them holding guns. The
photographs challenge people to rethink their assumptions about the impotence
of Muslim women. Women behind the veil have been underestimated.

Yet, their feminist champions in America depict these women as unmitigated
victims who will not defend themselves. How can they ever be safe otherwise?

Self-Defense

The women of Afghanistan already know that the collapse of the Taliban
will not remove their need for self-defense. In an appeal to the United
Nations, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
openly referred to the Northern Alliance as "looters and rapists."
RAWA called factions of the alliance "criminal and inhuman."

This is why feminists who champion Afghan women by dwelling exclusively
upon their victimization and helplessness are doing them a disservice.
It is the same feminist logic that cries out against rape while promoting
gun control laws that would leave women defenseless. The opposite of victimization
is empowerment.

Afghan women must be able to defend themselves if their rights are to
be more than transitory. The solution may be as simple as the right to
buy a gun. Weapons are easily available in that region. Women may need
nothing more than the right to purchase a weapon  or the right to
accept arms and earmarked donations from pro-gun organizations. Compassion
for Afghan women and rage toward the Taliban is running so high that donations
marked for "self-defense" might well flow in the same manner
as donations for food and other relief  if such donations are permitted
to do so.

Theresa Loar, president of Vital Voices Global Partnership, which promotes
women's global rights, declares, "If we are going to go in and rebuild
Afghanistan and reverse the damage, we better not rely on the guys with
the guns to make the decisions."

The best defense against "guys with guns" is women with guns.
This is especially true if the woman is alone in her home, protecting
her daughter from rape or her young son from being kidnapped into the
military.

But feminists are not offering Afghan women this option. Eleanor Smeal,
president of the left-wing Feminist Majority Foundation, urges instead
that women play a key role in reconstituting Afghanistan's future government.
But history has shown us that this will not be enough. In 1964, Afghanistan
adopted a constitution that included universal suffrage and equality for
women. Women assumed roles in both the government and the judiciary, and
constituted some 30 percent of Afghanistan's civil service. But active
participation in government didn't prevent the Taliban from shrouding
them in burqas. The ability to defend themselves might have.

Western forces cannot and should not patrol the streets of Afghanistan
to prevent violence against women. If these women are to resume the Western
advantages of having careers, freedom of speech and representation in
government, they must also assume the responsibility of self-defense.

There is a saying: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a
man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Give an Afghan woman the right
to own a gun and you protect her long after the current tragedy has become
old news. A gun in the hand of a mother who is protecting her child may
be the most humanitarian relief of all.

McElroy is the editor of Ifeminists.com.
She also edited Freedom, Feminism, and the State (Independent Institute,
1999) and Sexual Correctness: The Gender Feminist Attack on Women(McFarland,
1996). She lives with her husband in Canada.